Maybe it is time to be less forgiving. I have rarely agreed with our president, but I held on to the shreds of truth that shore up his arguments: we can’t welcome every immigrant who makes it to our border; we cannot bow to the audacity of corrupt governments in corrupt countries, and we can’t let our democracy morph into a theocracy of liberal dogma.
But his anger seems to have no bounds. His political bravado is predicated on lies, misjudgments and unabashed bigotry. He is, in short, a brooding maniac without bounds. I was once simply embarrassed by him and mortified—yet not afraid—of his megalomania, yet I now doubt he is fit for the office of president. I am late to the game, I know…
I am late to the game because I do believe in the power, progress and ultimate purpose of democracy—to serve and manifest the common will of our country. He was elected because he won. Pure and simple. She didn’t. But he crosses and crisscrosses the moral boundaries imposed upon us and embodied by “our” constitution; and right now, it is not “we the people;” it is an “us against them” revolution—an abnegation of the sacred trust of democracy to lead a diverse coalition of humanity forward to a better tomorrow.
But we are not moving forward. We are fractured schists of angry and myopic ideologies averse to compromise, devoid of any real empathy and impossibly and implacably entrenched in our divisions. He is not solely to blame, but he is the goddamned president whose first and only response is to diminish and denigrate the promise of competing points of view—and, more tellingly, any thoughtful and noble person who calls out his blundering, racist and misogynist bravado.
I am embarrassed by my votive quest to find a quiet and wise response to this maelstrom of inadequacy. I am embarrassed that I have not been chattering like an annoyed grackle whose nest is being torn apart. I am embarrassed for his party whose parochial silence is stunningly devoid of any semblance of originality and temperate vision, but mostly I am embarrassed to say that I am an American living in an un-American time in an un-American place, yet I still love this country more than I can put into words. I know we are not a lost cause because people are literally pouring across our borders—legally and illegally—to find and feast on some small slice of the American dream. There may be a very few who are very bad, but that is an easy game to play—there are bad men everywhere—and he is one of them.
Our insidious him, our president, sees the sinister in any shade of skin, bent of sexuality, or non-conforming prayer that does not mirror the vanity preening in his mirror. He is a bully on the playground, not a steward of our great and imperfect experiment in freedom. If he was in any school, he would spend the better part of every day in detention.
I am writing this because I can and should have done so sooner, and I realize that my pensive thoughts need to put into action. My rusty belts and levers need to be oiled and put into use. Democracy cannot be a passive amusement. Freedom is not a gift with a pretty bow. It is a messy idea we stand beside and fight for. It is an overwrought garden that can easily overwhelm even the most diligent farmer. I love that I am free to disagree, free to engage and free to change. I love that I can write this and my only burden will be a condemnation of my ignorance and a defanging of my intellect. I will not be thrown in jail. I won’t lose my job. I doubt I will even lose those friends who disagree with me vehemently. I will, however, rise tomorrow and go about my day with a blessed commonness surged with a new and motivating purpose—to make sure he is not our next president but merely a tawdry footnote on a messy page of history.
And I won’t go quiet unto that good night.
Our country is better than him.
